Entre as funções oficiais e oficiosas da Força-Tarefa de Intervenção Penitenciária: Guerra às facções e a gestão bélica do sistema penal brasileiro

Abstract

This research aims to study the Prison Intervention Task Force (Força-Tarefa de Intervenção Penitenciária – FTIP), a state response to the crisis within the brazilian prison system, officially justified by the fight against “organized crime” and the “war on factions.” However, the study investigates FTIP’s operations beyond the boundaries of its declared functions, demonstrating that it also performs unofficial roles, including the expansion of a warlike management of prisons, the militarization of punishment, and the indiscriminate application of the differentiated disciplinary regime, through practices such as collective sanctions, the ostensive use of weaponry, and enforced incommunicado, among other violations. These aspects reveal a model of social control that transcends the prison space, merging itself as a mechanism for disciplining the working class. The theoretical framework of the research is grounded in Marxist critical criminology, with particular emphasis on Latin American scholars of the political economy of punishment and the Marxist Theory of Dependency (TMD). In the context of neoliberalism, the warlike management of the prison system does not work in isolation but is intertwined with the logic of labor super-exploitation. To investigate the FTIP and its functions, a documentary analysis was conducted, drawing from reports of the National Mechanism for the Prevention and Combat of Torture (MNPCT), Ministry of Justice (MJSP) ordinances related to the FTIP, and MJSP management reports. These materials were examined to analyze the FTIP’s functions beyond the punitive aspect, particularly its strategic role in economic and political governance.